House Resolution 1 should be called “For Democratic Politicians,” not the “For the People Act,” as the voting reforms it seeks will make the “one-time, untested voting methods” used in the 2020 election permanent measures designed to help Democrat candidates, Sen. Tom Cotton said Monday.
“It does make permanent a lot of the one-time, untested voting methods we used last year like mandatory mail-out voting,” the Arkansas Republican said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” “It requires statements to use absentee ballot drop boxes. It mandates ballot harvesting, a practice that is so susceptible to fraud that an entire House of Representatives election was invalidated two years ago because of it. It requires your tax dollars to go to campaigns with whom you disagree.”
The measure, however, “absolutely” can’t pass the Senate with a simple majority, as there is no way around a filibuster, said Cotton, but he added that he’s not even sure Democrats would have the 50 votes they need to pass it with a tiebreaker from Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Some Democrats, I think, would balk at a bill that also regulates political speech,” said Cotton. “In the 60 days before an election, it would make a federal crime spreading so-called disinformation. Who do you think is going to be responsible, a New York Times fact-checker or Facebook or Twitter? The same people who said the accurate story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was false and had to be suppressed online? This is a frontal assault on the First Amendment and your rights to political speech.”
Cotton added that the bill gives the federal government, not states, the regulatory power over elections, and said that is against the Constitution.
“The founding fathers put the responsibility for the elections primarily with the states,” said Cotton. “Congress has some power, but it doesn’t have the kind of sweeping power that this bill serves to essentially federalize all election practices while also suppressing political speech at the height of a political campaign.”
Source: Newmax
